Getting the Gig
by flax
Summary: An AU, post-war, post-victory story about Hermione Granger. She is trying to find what she wants to do with her life, and so far, the job hunt is no adventure.
1. Chapter 1

This is a work of fan fiction. Hogwarts, its characters and world belong to J.K. Rowlings.

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There was no explaining it, but Hermione got out her phone and tried to explain it. "I'm going to be late, I am caught in traffic," she said, but Ms. Quince didn't much care for those who dally, and let her know there was no point coming to the interview.

Hermione heaved a sigh and was unhappy. After childhood, adulthood was supposed to be about being reasonable and what not. However, all that was true so far was that no one told her what to do with her days - there was not a schedule except that she kept trying to get into one. However, adults, it appeared, were simply big, overgrown children.

In grimmer moments, and this was one, Hermione wondered if the adults of Hogwarts would have appeared so childish if she'd only realized that adults are not so different from children.

Hermione let the cabbie know to just drop her "anywhere" -- she was no longer in a rush. So he pulled to the side, stopping beside the parked cars, where Hermione paid him, and portfolio in hand, got out. There wasn't a reason to arrive home fresh, and the walk would help her think.

There were jobs in the edges of the wizarding world, and jobs in the center of the wizarding world. The most central jobs - those involving the ministry - well, Hermione was beginning to think she might have to aim for one. The next layer out - jobs in reputable wizarding firms doing reputable wizarding things for people who could pay for such - there were not as many of those jobs as you might suspect. The next layer out - those who sort of existed on the margin between wizarding and muggle, using muggle inspiration to make things wizards would desire - that was where Hermione was recently trying to be hired.

She didn't hear the tick of her own shoes as she walked up a sidewalk on an old street in an old city lined by old buildings. The trees on this street were kept like flowers were kept on some of the other streets: carefully and as if they were temporary bloomers to be valued until they were done. The windows weren't dark, nor were they well lit. The establishments were not clearly labeled, and people who wandered up or down this street seldom paid attention, focusing on where they were headed rather than where they were. It was how this street had been for a long time. And Hermione, though witch, was not suspicious. She simply walked, miserable, back to her her flat, along a hard to find block.

A bit of clanging distracted her and she looked up from her funk. Though this street looked as modern as every other muggle street, she felt for a moment like it reminded her of Diagonal Alley. Something about the bricks seemed off, like she'd just barely glimpsed them as they stopped moving, or as if, if she'd blink, they'd rearrange while she wasn't looking. And the source of the clanging came out on the street.

The doors of the houses here were a few stairs above the street, and they also had basement doors, a few stairs below the street, but door was directly on the street, as if every builder had agreed that what was true outside the house was irrelevant to what was true inside the house. That or it was some sort of old nod to tradition and power. Hermione paused to watch the mechanisms of doors opening, like a minor engineering miracle, and a suited man being put out onto the stoop, five steps above street level.

"I will not be in touch, Henney," said a voice Hermione knew. "And tell whoever sent you that I said no -- and that I won't pursue illegal research." Draco Malfoy stepped out onto the porch with the suited man, and shouted -- "did you hear that? or would you like to bore me some more?" He was wearing slacks and a button down shirt, a tie, and an annoyed face. "So go," he said.

"Sir," started Henney, but the doors closed and if was possible, it seemed the bricks themselves got closer together as the house turned a deaf ear.

The man came down the steps, muttering and angry. "What street is this?" asked Hermione of the man who was walking toward her.

He looked at her as if she was insane, and said, "Get out of my way."

"Is someone there hiring?" she asked, pointing at the house that now looked positively abandoned, shuttered and dark.

The man stopped and glared. He was taller than Hermione, so he could look down, and glare more from that vantage, which he did.

"Girl, what do you want?" he asked.

Hermione noted his suit, his hair, his accent, his stance, his eyes. Up close, he was a wizard, for certain, trying to look like a muggle -- he was dressed as a muggle, but not effectively. He wore a regular suit like it would break him with its seams and fabric. His hair looked like it longed to be wild, but he'd oiled it down. His accent was one like the kids who came from deep in the magical neighborhood, and his stance was the version of aggression that was shifty. He looked like he'd fight if it gained him anything, and cower if it would gain him anything. His eyes looked Hermione over for what he could get.

Hermione tried to look empty and uninteresting with a certain slump, a certain lean, and a certain leaning lack of aggression of her own.

"I was looking for work," she said and then she asked again: "Is someone there hiring?"

Henney laughed.

"You don't look like much," he said nastily, his eyes showing an absence of caring about what he saw, "but maybe he'll give you a try. Draco Malfoy, that's the place," said Henney, pointing.

"What were you interviewing for?" she asked.

The man laughed.

"Head chemist. But maybe he'll hire you to do the chamber work. They're a traditional family, but they're kind, and don't kill the mud bloods. anymore." Henney walked off laughing.

Hermione didn't let herself react.

It was a lead.

When the day was over she could feel punched in the gut. For now, she had a job to demand.

She walked up the stairs, faintly unaware of how desperate she was, jabbed the bell, which alerted the people in the house to how desperate she was, and her identity, as this was the magic bell on a magic house on a magic street in an old city, and the current owner liked to experiment.

Draco came to the door, now wearing the jacket on the suit, and welcomed her in.

"Hermione Granger," he said smoothly. "I don't believe I made an appointment with you this afternoon."

"You are looking for a head chemist," she said, walking in, and ignoring the carpet underfoot, the dark wood of the floor around it, the wood panels up to a certain level, and the tastefully relentless wall paper that rose above, to a ceiling, which if she had looked, would have been pressed metal. A giant wooden chair/chest was there with an attached mirror, and hooks for jackets. Draco deftly relieved her of her jacket, hung it up, and ushered her into an office.

"You may have to excuse me for a few minutes while I attend to the appointments I did make," said the man as he offered her the chair in front of his desk, put her portfolio out on his desk, still zipped, and sat down behind his desk himself. He sat back. He looked at her, and knew what he was looking at: brains without a place in the world. She looked at him and simply wondered what had changed -- his hair was still white, his face was still pale, his chin was still pointy, but something had changed. Draco wasn't beaten anymore.

"Wizards need to integrate into the muggle world," said Draco, noting Hermione's shock. "Wow me," he then said.

Hermione's mouth went dry. She could barely begin to speak, so she opened her portfolio in order to at least have things to point at, to prompt her to speak.

Mid way through her presentation, Draco interrupted her for a scheduled appointment. "I'll take it across the hall," he said, waving her to stay where she was. "When I get back, I'm going to ask you what you would sell to a wizard that was magical, that would let them live with muggles effectively." He walked out, and the door closed behind him.

Hermione sat there in dumb shock. "I need a glass of water," she muttered to herself, and one appeared on Malfoy's desk.

"Thank you," she said, taking it, and drinking it.

"You're welcome," said the desk.

"You talk?" she asked.

"No, and you should be thinking about the question," it said, and it said no more.

Hermione looked out of the window and wondered. What would you sell a wizard to help them live with the muggles. And why was Malfoy trying to get wizards to live with muggles? Effectively? He said "effectively" -- and what did Malfoy mean by living with muggles "effectively."

Hermione pulled out a notebook, a pen, wrote words, and drew designs, and wrote more words, and drew charts, and wrote more words. "Magic desk" showed up a few times, as well as, "Why live with muggles?" and "What's a wizard?" She had a few useless ideas (a ring to make your clothes seem more muggleish, to be renewed every season as the fashions changed; a kit of standard muggle gadgets, spelled to help one learn to use them like a muggle would; a trained animal to watch and make sure muggles did not take things away) -- unimaginative ideas. She looked up to glare and drink her water again when she realized her interviewer had returned.

"The job is no longer available," he said.

"What?" she asked.

"Thank you for coming in," he said.

"I had ideas," Hermione said.

"Let me call you a cab," Draco said, picking up the phone and ordering a car service. "You live in the city?" he asked. Hermione nodded, and he made the arrangements. "You'll let the driver know where to drop you off."

"Is there another job?" she asked.

"At ferret enterprises?" he asked, sneering for once. The desk seemed to sigh in a disappointed way.

"Is there another job I could interview for?" Hermione asked.

"Leave me your resume and I'll consider it," he said. Which Hermione did. There is a certain unpolished reaction for job hunters who are not completely secure with the process - she pulled it out quickly as if that meant it was more honest. Malfoy took it all the same, and put it, now a single piece of paper on the desk -- nothing else there but a phone and her portfolio which he had zipped up for her.

"I can do magic," she said.

"Good to know," he said.

"I can do chemistry," she said.

"Your resume says that," he replied.

"I can do biology," she said.

"I would expect so," he replied.

"I need work," she said.

"I got that message," he said.

He stood, and she stood. They went into the hall. He held out her jacket, and she got into it. She shook his hand and thanked him for the interview. She went out on the stoop, walked down to the waiting car, and got in. She gave the address the address, and was driven home.

Hermione, the brain who needed work, found herself confused on one point: she was certain Draco had lied when he said the job was no longer available. She went in, and up, to her apartment, a fifth floor walk up, and put the stuff of interviews away. She got into her regular clothes, padded over to her kitchen area, and put a piece of pizza in her microwave to warm. The cheese bubbled. It took seconds, but while that happened, Hermione had a thought. She summoned, and using her job-hunting-skills, she poured through the news paper for that job. It wasn't under "Malfoy Enterprises." It wasn't under "chemist." It wasn't under "Muggle Research." It was, oddly enough, listed as "Research in Muggle Relations" which Hermine had never noticed. Her stomach remind her that she had not eaten, and she returned to her microwave and the now room temperature piece of pizza.

Hermione thought things about Draco, assuming he was doing the stuff of dark wizardry. She cleaned up, and looked at her agenda for tomorrow. It was an agenda she had spelled for herself, to help her think of what to do as she engaged in the job hunt.

"9 AM -- Send Draco Malfoy a thank you note and indicate you still want the job" was on her agenda, along with exercise advice and then, 10:30 AM, start for a ministry interview. That one was for a minor job in a dusty and forgotten office where she would get ahead best by doing nothing and keeping strangers from doing anything also.

"Are you kidding me?" she asked the agenda. But she had not spelled it to answer her verbally, but as no entries went way, it could be assumed that the agenda was not kidding.

Then it hit her and Hermione paused to wonder: why had Draco been using a construct to do interviews? That wasn't Draco at first, it was a copy. But the second time, it was Draco.

Then Hermione stopped that train of thought: "Draco is not my problem. Not having a job is my problem," she thought. "He can do anything he wants as long as it's legal."

The word "focus" appeared in her agenda.

"Rent," Hermione replied.

"Good thinking."

Practical concerns and curiosity -- they'd conflicted. Hermione knew she needed to do better than survive, but Draco didn't seem that significant.

"1:30 PM -- shower off the dust from the useless office for boredom job at the ministry."

"Fine, I'll try," she said.

The journal posted no more.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry Potter & his world were created by and belong to J.K. Rowlings. This is a fan fiction.

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It was the next morning and Hermione prepared a fine breakfast of oatmeal, raisins, and water, sat down at her fine kitchen table in her fine dining area. The loft was fine, if not small, and thus, somewhat more affordable. She had been a major part of defeating evil when she became an adult, but now that she was an adult, the struggles were different. Having defeated evil left her free to find a place in the world. It was a surprise. And it meant cutting expenses while trying to be creative. So, today, Hermione had cut up the raisins that she put in her oatmeal: creative and cost effective.

Where could she do work that added value to things people would want to buy? Trading? Generating spelled objects? Generating spells themselves? It was the post war boom, and Hermione had not yet found her feet.

The only thing of interest that had happened around Hermione recently was Draco's duplicity. Draco's duplicity, literal, meant he met her as a doppelganger and then let her out as himself, which seemed to actually be more polite than to meet as the real version and then expel her as doppelganger. And frankly, she'd done enough of these hiring interviews - they were by the book - why not send doppelgangers to do the work? She thought about sending a doppelganger of herself to the ministry today to give the interview, but the wards at the doors would probably notice and repel the construct.

Hermione thought about making a doppelganger to stand up and wash the dishes now. She could think of no compelling reason not to, and so, lumping together some uneaten oatmeal, she looked about and thought. No harm no foul. But she still didn't give it life. "With my luck, it would want my life" she thought, and mashed the oatmeal back down into a lump before eating it.

On schedule with her magical agenda, Hermione went to the ministry and found the appointed offices for her interviews. It was the Office of Review and Oversight for Class A-J, L-N Curse Breaking. The job was one of keeping track of curse breakers who did specific curse breaking spells. It was a office on a 5.3rd floor, in a room filled with filing cabinets that became walls between the various walks and desks. One got the feeling that information came here to die in cabinets that squeaked and were only opened in order to make a deposit or to check on contents. It felt like a basement and everything here, from cabinets to clothes, to the air itself, seemed to take on a shadowy hue somewhere between beige and grey.

Her interviewer met her at the door to the office, introduced himeslf (Mr. Burlywood), and led her down the warren of filing cabinets to a alcove he called his office. He offered her a grey chair and sat behind his faded desk.

"You come very well recommended" said her interviewer, looking at her recommendations.

"I was happy to get this interview. Thank you for seeing me," she replied.

"Your resume and recommendations shine brighter than your reputation," he said, now reading her resume. It was a compliment.

"Thank you very much."

When he was done taking his time slowly reading the obvious document, Mr. Burlywood looked up at the woman sitting before him. "I should tell you that we are seeing three other people for this job, and one of them has alot more experience in ministry curse breaking. He worked in the division of curse creation for twelve years before applying for this job."

"While I did not work for the ministry producing curses, during the war, I learned a great deal about working with, creating, deflecting, and understanding curses, and this would help me do this job well," said Hermione. She thought to herself: How do you put "fought in war" on a resume?

"Ah, no, he learned the ministry filing methods and civil service codes to the letter. We find that a great deal of the experience people need in work like ours is experience being meticulous and exact. Are you a good detail person?"

Hermione explained that she was always clear on the details and always kept track of the bigger picture and how the details fit into it. She felt, somehow, not that there was much noticeable change in the bland man's countenance, that she had not answered the question right. The greyness on his face tinged a shade darker as he dipped his head and didn't look at her so directly. He asked the question again.

"Do you work well with details?" he asked.

Hermione mentioned that her best work was in highly detailed areas where specifics mattered and changed all the time. She mentioned specific potions brewed and spells cast.

"Yes," said the grey man. He did not make eye contact while saying "yes." Then he looked up, and his face was impassive, done. "Thank you for coming in. We will be in touch," he said.

"May I ask when you will be making a decision about this?" said Hermione, standing up. She was stiff from the short time sitting in this mid-floor office, and her throat felt raspy from the drying air in here.

"Later tomorrow, I expect" said Mr. Burlywood. He showed her out, through the corridors of cabinets, to the elevator. He shook her hand, and the bland polite things one says at times like this seemed wasted, but Hermione said them anyways. She waited by the elevator, her escort returned to his burrow, and when the doors opened, she got in, pretending to pay attention but not really looking around. The doors closed. The elevator went up, and not down. Hermione decided it didn't matter, and pushed the ground floor button.

"Hello, Ms. Granger. Is your head in the game?" asked a familiar voice.

Hermione looked, and sure enough, it was Draco Malfoy. She squinted, and decided it really was Draco Malfoy. He held his head up and smiled like a model. The doppelganger had more gravitas.

"Why didn't you hire me?" she asked. She had nothing to lose, and it was nice to be able to ask a question.

"What, and take you away from this?" he asked, waving at the elevator, which happened to be in the Ministry of Magic.

"I'm here for a job which tomorrow they will give to someone who has 12 more years experience than I do in filing papers and making no trouble."

"Ah, Denner, well, then, he won't bother me anymore."

"Who did you hire instead of me?" she asked Malfoy.

"No one. The ministry told me I can't do the research," he said, the doors opening and him stepping out. "Show up at my place tomorrow without an appointment, and we can talk again." He was out, and the elevator doors closed. The elevator stayed there, paused. Hermione frowned. Then she realized, hit the button again, and the elevator took her down. This was happening too much.

Hermione wasn't reading into it, because that would be insane, but she'd been missing details like this for months. There was no curse -- she'd looked -- she had Harry look, too --- so it was just bad luck, and there was not a thing she could do about it. Maybe that's the definition of adulthood: unremitting bad luck.

Hermione went outside, looked up, saw the clouds. She looked to the left, down the street, and saw what seemed to be a wall of rain. Hermione got soaked by a unrelenting rain storm of fast and unbelievable force. Many people didn't know it had rained that day, but Hermione was doing drying spells for the rest of afternoon.

Hermione started to parse the things he had said:

"Show up at my place without an appointment," she thought. She looked at her agenda, and it was clear. "I wonder if he does interviews over food?" she thought, and planned to go at 1 PM, though not hungry, just in case, but still hoping.

"The ministry told me I can't do the research," she thought. That could simply mean he didn't file the proper papers. In a grey office. But you'd think being a Malfoy would make that problem go away.

And you'd think being Hemione Granger would make the first year out of Hogwarts a snap, too.

She tossed on muggle clothes, called Harry, and he met her for pizza.

"Malfoy?" he sputtered when she told him.

"You can avenge my bones when it's over." she said.

"He's the one who was pushing for permission to research life changing magical conditions, you know," said Harry, thinking about this.

"He was trying to redefine "harm" in the "do no harm" policies for hex lifting."

"Yes -- so you do know about it?"

"That's all I know. It sounds like a back door into the dark arts."

"He's trying to develop a cure to magical conditions like lycanthropy and some insanities."

"Huh."

"Hermione?" Harry asked, over cheese, bread, and red sauce.

"Huh?" she said over her cheese, bread, red sauce, and vegetables.

"If he hurts you, I promise to do him in, but frankly, he may be the only one around doing research you're interested in."

"Everyone else is scared to look like they are doing Dark Arts these days," she said.

"And Malfoy is going to look like the Dark Arts no matter what, so he's got no reputation to protect," Potter finished.

"Wish me luck."

"I hope there's ugly, nasty, boring, poisonous, and complicated stuff, galore!" he said, cheerily.

"You."

They parted with pecks and hugs, him walking her home and her going in and getting her rest.

She had a unscheduled appointment tomorrow, and so to bed -- she wanted to be in shape to crash an interview.


	3. Chapter 3

Harry Potter and his universe belong to J. K. Rowlings -- this is only a fan fiction.

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For some reason, Hermione was certain she could find the right street, easily. She had been there before. This was odd. She had been walking the same neighborhood over and over, looking for Draco Malfoy's place.

And, she was annoyed to realize, it was magically hard to find. For instance, just when she thought she saw the street, she'd walk up to the corner, and it would turn out to be some other cross street. She found herself walking north without turning north, when she'd been clearly walking south just a moment before. And on occasion, trying to get at it from a another way, she'd walk east on another street and find herself walking north on a completely different street, without seeing the shift.

This was a whole new level of annoying. She wondered if she should curse break, but that seemed rude.

She tried to remember how she got to the street before – and it had been by not paying attention and simply heading up town. So, she didn't pay attention, and blindly headed uptown.

That didn't work either. She arrived uptown. And so, by this time hungry, Hermione went into a small corner diner, found a small table by the wall, and got a menu and water. Then, what do you know?, Draco arrives, looking like the most comfortable person in the world, not at all tired, hungry, annoyed or confused. He sat down with her as she was making her order.

So he ordered too, and when he ordered, he had no problem ordering like a muggle. Hermione looked him over, and decided this was the real Draco.

He must have noticed as he smiled and said: "I'm the real thing."

That was a conversation they couldn't have in a muggle restaurant, and she wasn't going to throw up a talking spell for no good reason. Especially when she wanted the waiters to notice when she needed refills or service.

"I couldn't find your place," she did say.

Draco paused, and she was happy to see he didn't throw up a spell to let them talk privately either. "How did you get there last time?"

"I was just walking and ran into Denner on the street coming out."

"Then my house is smarter than I am," he concluded.

The food came and Hermione ate. The best interviews were the ones where you didn't care if you got the job or not, she'd decided. That's when she made her best answers – not that any of them had netted a job she wanted yet. But, best to go down feeling good.

"Everyone's scared to look like the bad guy," said Draco around a meatloaf sandwich which he washed down with tea.

"Something you don't have to fear," said Hermione.

"Me more than anyone!" said Draco with stylish defensiveness.

It was so patently untrue, Hermione wondered if he even believed it.

"No one is hiring me," pointed out Draco.

"Are you looking for work?" asked Hermione.

"Not as much as I tried that route, and it didn't work."

"What did you want?" she asked.

"Let me tell you back at the lab," he answered. "But first, you have to try their cakes; this place has an amazing baker."

"You know the employment records of the bakers in various diners across the city?"

"We're on the corner of the block where I live," he said.

Hermione glared.

"My house is smarter than you too?" he asked, innocently. "It's soooo annoying."

Hermione decided Malfoy was still annoying, but she did have random cake # 3. Draco, on the other hand, had something very specific, with a specific name, a specific filling, and it sounded like he knew the provenance for the recipe. Even if it was simply random cake #3 to Hermione, she did enjoy it, and the food did cheer her up.

Draco paid the bill, and Hermione let him, walked her out, and then escorted her to his stoop, and Hermione let him. Along the way he pointed out some landmarks that would help her find it again. Some of them were moving landmarks, like a bird perched on a tree or a specific color of car parked at a specific angle to the curb. "The bird stays there?" she asked.

"No," he answered. She looked at him curiously. "The bird moves, and the house moves – it seemed safer that way."

"That's a huge spell," she said, as they walked up his stairs.

"Not as big as you'd think," he replied. "I made the tiny townhouse my residence, and not the mansion."

"Your mansion is in the country," she said absently.

"Not that one either." He opened the door and guided in his unscheduled appointment for the day.

This time they went into the regular front office which was less personal and less comfortable. It looked like an insurance agent's office – clean, proper, with full shelves, but not a lot of them, and handbooks with recent dates.

Draco sat behind the desk, threw his feet up on it, and said, "I have a proposition. I'm well known to be evil, so you work for me and you get to work on the stuff no one wants touched anymore. You're well known to be good, so the ministry will trust you with the permits to do the research. It's a match made in heaven."

"What are you researching?"

"Generally – curse breaking."

"Lovely. Specifically?"

"I'll need an agreement confidentiality first."

Hermione paused. That was new and bad. Draco pulled out two documents from the desk drawer, the only pieces of paper in there, both with Hermione's and his names on them. One was a contract and said how much he'd pay and what he'd expect for hours and that it covered two months, with the expectations that they would know in two months if this was a working partnership. The other was a confidentiality agreement.

"Partnership," she said, having read the contract.

"I want a curse broken, and you aren't cheap."

Hermione thought to herself, I feel cheap these days, thinking of her tiny apartment, her cheap clothes, her basic foods, and her lack of mad money.

"We could start with the curse on you, if you'd like, but again, how about the confidentiality agreement first."

"There's no spell on me, I checked," she said.

Draco walked out waving for her to stay. She did, looking around. The room seemed like a basic room for paper work, but unlike yesterday's room at the ministry, this one had sun. And even plants. Little green tufts of leaves seemed like puff balls on top of trunks that grew in loops and curves: odd, but the plant was clearly doing fine.

Draco walked back in, and put something wrapped in cloth on the desk in front of Hermione. He sat down.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Curse detector," he answered.

Hermione pulled out her wand, and tried to find out what it was and what it would do. The best she could tell was that inside the folded fabric was a black rock that seemed like a black rock from an old river: smooth, palm sized, surprisingly heavy, and cold. It, as far as she could tell, responded to magic by twitching and, she guessed, changing color. Or that's what it seemed to do inside it's wrapper. The wrapper kept it contained and not detecting things until it touched them directly.

"Nice wrapper," she said.

"Made it myself," he replied.

Hermione looked thoughtfully at Draco, and then the fabric. Draco knew it wasn't an angry glare, and the fabric had not seen the furrow in her brow. Hermione unwrapped the rock, and it was as expected. She picked it up, and it seemed to prick her hand. She felt little tiny needles, like her hand was asleep, that then stretched to her whole body, until subsiding. Hermione found it unpleasant, but what was more unpleasant was that the rock was vibrating and a beautiful shade of blue. Unmistakable indicator.

She looked up at Draco, down at the rock, over at her wand, and then the rock again. It subsided and looked like a rock. She wrapped it in the cloth, and returned her gaze to its owner.

"The confidentiality statement says that we will have secrets specific to our partnership, and these secrets will be what we are working on, what we are planning to work on, what we have decided not to work on, and how we plan to approach the problems we address in curse breaking. Information about what curses and how we break them is confidential, and will be kept in confidence, unless it broaches upon secrecy or life threatening exigencies."

"That part's not a magical agreement," said Hermione, looking it over, and staring at it through a lens she brought for this purpose. The two month contract was a pain in the neck and magical and had invisible elements that she read through her lens and found to be boilerplate, somewhat fair, and annoying. The confidentiality agreement, though, was just paper and pen.

"You can't force trust," said Draco.

"You're drawing up a contract," said Hermione.

"I'm trying to be clear."

"And what do you mean by 'you can't force trust'?" asked Hermione.

"I'd do this with a handshake, but I wanted to be clear." said the surprising former nemesis. "It may be necessary in the long run to break the word of this one in order to keep the spirit."

"What's the spirit?"

"A mission to allow wizards and witches to be healed of curses which prevent them from having friends and family."

"You're under a curse that prevents you from having friends and family?"

"I said we'd start with your's first," replied grey-eyed, evil guy.

"You evil, me good," muttered Hermione.

"Don't get too comfortable with that, or you'll have to be evil to make up for my inadequacies in the category," said Draco, who signed twice and passed the papers across the desk to Hermione.

"I'm not going to to do blind research for you," she said.

"Ah, blind research, and I was so hoping for useless results," he answered.

"And I'm not going to do something that I think will produce a new unforgivable" she added.

"Let's give the two months a try, and see if this works," he replied. "I don't think that's what I'm asking, but that's exactly why the ministry won't give me my permits."

"So the permits," said Hermione.

"We don't need a permit to identify a curse. Wanna see my mad scientist laboratory? It's Frankenstein and everything."

Hermione said yes.

Draco touched first finger to the half signed the documents on the desk. Hermione read again, and signed, dated, and looked up.

"That says 'boss' and not 'partner,'" she pointed out, regarding the agreement.

"Let's see how we work together," he said, bouncing up, suddenly energized as if he were happy.

He led her out, down a narrow corridor to a stair way going down that was housed beneath a stair way going up. "Welcome to the laboratory of doom!" he said, melodramatically, leading Hermione down to a boring, standard, well stocked, and decent sized room. Everything in the house was narrow, but this was slightly less narrow. It was stocked with some magical equipment, but mostly there was space, light coming in basement windows, chalk boards, and chairs.

"Wanna lie on the lab table and let me do hocus pocus?" asked Draco, pulling out his wand. Hermione sat on the desk which otherwise had a few papers on its surface. She did not lie back, but they did get down the the business of figuring out what was the curse lurking around her.

Draco did a few passes.

Hermione did a few passes.

Draco enchanted a paper to be Hermione's aura.

Hermione tried to externalize her sense of fate.

Draco put her on a magical scale that gave both volume and an analysis of contents.

Hermione made hand and finger prints to see what else was pushing with her hands.

This went on for hours.

At one point, Hermione argued his rock was wrong, and she charmed one of her own that gave the same reading.

Eventually, Draco took some of her hair, put it in a magic book, let it sit, and then opened it up to read.

"Hermione," he asked in a falsely sweet voice.

Hermione was itching for a fight and asked what.

"When did your luck turn to zip?" he asked.

"I don't believe in luck," she muttered.

"Cute, OK, when did statistics start gunning against you?"

Since I started trying to move on, she thought to herself. "I don't know" she said.

"Can I come home with you tonight and see your stuff?" he asked. "This is clearly stuck to you, but not coming from inside you."

"What are you reading?" she asked.

"It's a novel about all the bad things that could possibly happen to a recently Hogwarts graduate. Mud, rain, bad finances, no romance, no work, and that's the beginning." He flipped ahead in the book. "Oh, look: destitution for years, a sense of defeat, illnesses that take away what joy is left and," then he flipped forward again, to the end. Hermione didn't want to hear it, but there it was, he said: "and then an ending; it's a fairly meaningless and lonely one." He closed the book.

"No, really, what were you reading?" she asked.

"It's a book – take a piece of a hair from a cursed person, and the book makes a novel about the sorts of things that might happen to them going forward, but it doesn't tell me what the curse is. It's the symptoms, not the cause."

"Is that legal?" she asked.

"Why not?" he replied. "Let's go to your place – I don't like my workers to be cursed by people other than me."

They got food from the corner place and then got a cab back to her apartment.

Hermione knew there's nothing to be embarrassed about with poverty, but Hermione was embarrassed. Draco, however was not. He was unaware. He did notice something else, and five minutes after he arrived, he was angry.

"What is that?" he asked again, pointing at the agenda that seemed to try to skitter away.

He shot bolts of something that looked like miniature lightning at it, and oddly enough, it seemed to shoot beams of green light back at him. Draco tripped trying to move toward it. It fell off the table, and seemed, in a weird moment of gravity shifting and the world going insane, to be about to fall out the window. Draco spelled the window shut and the book bounced onto the floor, where it inched toward Hermione.

"Don't let it touch you," he said, through gritted teeth, as he muttered other phrases to his wand.

Hermione was surprised. She found herself listless, unable to mood, beset by a sense of meaninglessness. Why struggle? None of this meant anything anyway. She got what she deserved, and the apartment was fine. She could live, and it was enough. She should probably get some other ministry job, as that was safer, too, now that she thought about it.

Draco was burning her floor boards and suddenly Hermione felt upset. She sent a gush of water to put them out. When the steam cleared, her agenda was singed at the center of it. That struck Hermione as odd, but still, she was too tired to care.

"It's stealing your luck and eating your life," said the wizard, now trying to pull the binding off the back of the agenda with a set of invisible hands that had snuck up on it.

"I'd have noticed," said Hermione, tired.

Draco quit.

Hermione sat down and realized everything was normal and fine.

"It's the agenda or me," said Draco.

Hermione was a bit upset. How could he be so manipulative?

"Don't push me around," she said.

"You're fired," he said.

"We have a two month contract."

"If you hold me to it, I'll have you measure the rate of paint peeling in a room with a boring lecture as versus paint peeling in a room with absolutely nothing going on."

Hermione was considering it.

"Who made the agenda?" he asked.

"I did." She said. "I made one for Harry and Ron each, too," she added.

"Do they use them?" he asked.

"No, but they don't want me to know that."

"Good," said Malfoy. He then turned around to leave, having Hermione show him to the door. At the door, she shook his hand. He took her hand, and pulled her into the hall, turned his back on her, standing in her open door, and he cast various nasty, destructive, and generally corrosive spells on the agenda. As it melted Hermione screamed and fell to the floor. Draco didn't quit, but did activate a privacy charm. He took the time he needed to kill the little parasitical agenda.

When Hermione came to from her faint, she was in her bed. There was a burn mark on her floor surrounded by her floor boards stained pale with bleach.

She sat up, and looked around. Something was getting her attention from the table. A piece of paper was there. It stood up, as if it's corners were legs and hands, and it folded itself, amazingly, into the shape of a tiny body. Its little paper arms waved meaninglessly in the air, its paper legs stood there, and a voice recited the message on the note: "Don't get a new agenda, and see you in two days, 9AM, my townhouse. You have a nasty discolored spot in your floor boards - I suggest a rug - DM." Having recited its message, the note unfolded, rose in the air as if on a breeze, and floated back down to the table, looking like a completely ordinary piece of paper.

Hermione was exhausted and lay back down. She then realized that she felt something. When she tried to understand it, she came to the conclusion, she felt anger.

Hermione felt anger for the first time in months. The agenda had actually been making her miserable and feeding off the misery -- it was clearer now. And only the agenda could put her in the way of so much bad luck without actually putting a bad luck spell on her -- she hadn't had bad luck -- she'd had rotten timing. Because of the agenda. She then went to Ron and Harry's respectively, asked to see their agendas, and rained her anger down on them. Bleach and acid were just the opening acts. When she was done, she couldn't explain what she felt, but it felt good. She returned to her apartment, went to sleep, and woke the next day, identifying some residual anger, and went to Malfoy's lab.

He was dressed too casual, but it was his lab. He was in pants and a tee shirt. She'd worn work style muggle clothes: on the line between discomfort and respect. He didn't notice. They went downstairs. Draco had already put brown cardboard boxes the size of book boxes on a work table.

"What are those?" she demanded.

Malfoy smirked.

"People have been doing dumb junk to themselves for generations," he said. "just like your agenda. But this is the stuff people want to keep. Have you ever looked at family heirlooms through a curse lens?"

"That's what we're dealing with here? Self inflicted parasitical spells?"

"They're even better when they reach across the generations, and in part, yes."

"For that part," said Hermione, "I'm in."

Malfoy smiled.

He pulled a small jewelry chest out of a box and put it on the work bench. Hermione asked him what was the issue.

"Every piece in there is unwearable because of a spell, and the owners want to wear them."

"I'm not here for jewelry in the long run," muttered Hermione, getting to work.

"But it's so practical," laughed Malfoy, heading up the stairs. "They pay!"

Good point, she thought. "Where are you going?" she asked.

"Paperwork to say we're now officially taking curses off personal items in this room, on this date, blah blah blah" he answered, disappearing.

"Denner will file it, you know," his voice said, but he was already gone.

Hermione noticed that she felt some pride and satisfaction. She got to work.


End file.
